I respect anyone who longs for racial unity, harmony, and reconciliation—especially as done within the context of the local church. It’s a notoriously difficult issue. Feelings often get bruised, and the temptation is to throw in the towel. Engagement with this issue requires both perseverance and forbearance.
With that said, I’m bothered by the way in which some are dealing with the issue of race.
I recognize that it is almost always easier to criticize proposals and paradigms than it is to offer constructive alternatives in their place. With that said, here are some of my criticisms. Please bear in mind that I’m speaking in generalities about broad patterns I see:
1. We have wrongly taught that the New Testament talks about and condemns the problem of racism. I think this is untrue. I don’t think racism existed in the New Testament church. Racism is a modern phenomena that began in the Enlightenment period. (For the arguments and evidence, see Dinesh D’Souza’s The End of Racism.) The issue that is being dealt with in the New Testament is religious disagreement and religious bigotry. We should make that distinction clear. And yes, the New Testament does condemn racism by implication. But not directly.
2. We have failed to define racism, and if we do venture a definition, we define it incorrectly. I would follow Ralph Wood’s definition of racism, which I find helpful, and sufficient.
“Racist” and “racism” often become code words for silencing genuine debate about the most important moral question in American history. It is easy to damn and dismiss opponents by spraying them with the epithet “racist.” Yet the term has quest specifiable moral meaning: racists deny the dignity and worth of other human beings because of their skin color; they assert the inherent superiority of their own race over others; and they deny all decency and respect to members of the so-called inferior races. Politically, racism means refusing the justice and the equality of opportunity that are due every citizen. Theologically, racism rejects the doctrine that all people are created in the image of God, that all races have sinned and fall short of God’s glory, that we are therefore brothers and sisters who are redeemed by neither our race or our righteousness but by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. (Ralph C. Wood, “The Problem of the Color Line,” Flannery O’Connor and the Christ-Haunted South, 94. )
This would probably be regarded by many as a “minimalist,” insufficient definition. But I disagree.
3. We have suggested—or let the suggestion pass—that all of us are racists, or tainted with racism, or have racist tendencies, or are racists by virtue of the color of our skin. First of all, this is itself a racist suggestion, because it implies an inferiority or detect or moral sin based on one factor: skin color. Second, it is not true. Third, it is usually just asserted and not argued for.
4. We have stressed the issue of “justice” more than the issue of “love.” I have no problem speaking of “racial justice”—if our terms are carefully defined. But usually they are not. I don’t think there is a great deal of “injustice” going on within the church today with regard to race. But we do have a “love” problem. We have failed to love one another as we ought. Love for those different from us should be viewed as a subset of our love for the body of the church in general, and that should be made explicit.
5. We have failed to give good arguments why “diversity” is so important. Philosophers speak of an “is-ought” fallacy (called the “naturalistic fallacy”). It says that you can’t derive an “ought” from an “is”—an obligation from a fact. Hence, from the fact that “many people are relativists” it does not follow that “all people ought to be relativists.” I fear that some are making an error I’d call the “will-be / ought” fallacy, which would go like this: just because there someday will be people of all races united around the throne, it does not automatically follow—as an obligation—that all of our local congregations must reflect that diversity. I don’t think the conclusion is inherently wrong, but I do think the argument is somewhat weak as is and needs further development and thought.
6. We have given too much credence to those people who have been unduly influenced by a secular, multicultural, liberal mindset with regard to race and racism.
7. Related to this, we have failed to give a sufficient hearing to conservatives (like Shelby Steele, John McWhorter, Thomas Sowell, and Dinesh D’Souza) who are addressing this complex issue.
